Sunday, September 30, 2012

Every once in a while we run across an image in rock art
that we just cannot imagine an explanation for. In my case one of these images
is a panel in southeastern Colorado that was dubbed by Bill McGlone as Los Pantalones. This
appears to be three figures, approximately life sized, wearing the pantaloons
of a Dutch burger, and the figure on the left even appears to be smoking the
long-stemmed clay pipe of the 1600s and 1700s. The right hand figure is considerably fainter than his two companions - see the close-up below.

Los Pantalones, contrast enhanced. Southeastern

Colorado. Photo: Peter Faris, 1998.

The three figures are faded/repatinated to the point of
being somewhat difficult to make out suggesting some age, indeed, in my
illustration I have had to push the contrast considerably to make the images
stand out.

This is another example of rock art in which I just cannot
conceive of an explanation. I leave it to all of you historians out there.
What’s up with Los Pantalones?

Saturday, September 22, 2012

We all are aware that according to Native American testimony
the imagery on a shield is thought to confer spiritual protection on the
bearer. It may illustrate his spirit guide or a dream seen during a vision
quest, but in any case the subject matter refers to the bearer’s power and
sacred protection. The imagery on a shield is however, more than just a
spiritual statement, it is an uniquely recognizable composition. No two shields
are likely to have the same decoration as no two warriors could have had the
same dream or vision. That means that
portraying the design on a shield is also making a reference to an identifiable
person – in other words it is a portrait of sorts. There are a few known instances
where one warrior presented or gifted his vision and the imagery referring to
it to someone else (or sold it to someone else) and in these cases there would
possibly be more than one, but these instances are relatively rare and probably
known in their reference group so they still refer to known individuals.

The pictograph panel seen in the illustration is from the
upper reaches of Westwater Creek in the Bookcliffs of Utah. The rock art
appears to date from prehistoric through historic periods. The prehistoric is
indicated by pedestrian shield figures and the historic is represented by later
Ute equestrian warriors. On the left side of the illustration there are two
pedestrian shield figures, and on the right side two shields are portrayed by
themselves. In all of these instances the shields have unique decorative
patterns on them. These would have belonged to four different, and
identifiable, individuals, and members of the reference group of those
individuals (his tribe or clan) would have recognized the pattern and known to
who the shield belonged. In this fashion the shield can be seen as a shorthand
reference to a particular individual, an identifying design. Those shields do
not represent four anonymous warriors, they serve as a portrait of sorts for each of
their owners, and the pictograph panel then could be seen as a portrait
gallery, the place where notable individuals from that group are commemorated.

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Although rock art is not often thought of as a subject for poetry and creative literature, there is no reason that the subject we love should not also inspire creative efforts in literature. In my own small way I have attempted to write essays on various aspects of the subject for many years. To this end I want to share with you a poem written by someone with particular insight on rock art as seen from his heritage, N. Scott Momaday. A biographer of Momaday's recently wrote:

"Navarre Scott Momaday was born in Lawton, Oklahoma and spent the first year of his life at his grandparents' home on the Kiowa Indian reservation, where his father was born and raised. When he was one year old, Scott's parents moved to Arizona. His father was a painter. His mother, who is of English and Cherokee descent, became an author of children's books. Both worked as teachers on Indian reservations when Scott was growing up, and the boy was exposed not only to the Kiowa traditions of his father's family but to the Navajo, Apache and Pueblo Indian cultures of the Southwest. Momaday early developed an interest in literature, especially poetry."

"To read Momaday’s poems from the last forty years is to understand that his focus on Kiowa traditions and other American Indian myths is further evidence of his spectacular formal accomplishments. His early syllabic verse, his sonnets, and his mastery of iambic pentameter are echoed in more recent work, and prose poetry has been part of his oeuvre from the beginning. The new work includes the elegies and meditations on mortality - but it also includes light verse and sprightly translations of Kiowa songs."

"WE HAVE SEEN THE ANIMALS – LASCAUX, by N. Scott Momaday

Lascaux Auroch.

For we have seen the animals

That linger in primordial tar,

Parade in step and intervals

That mark millennia, an arc

Of time beyond the reckoning

Whose hand has traced these living lines?

Whose mind has ventured past the thing

That mere mortality confines?

Horse, bison, auroch, bear, and deer,

Convene forever in the night,

Their ghosts, in old communion here,

Emerge in stark, forgotten light.

Or has their spirit thrived unseen,

Bled into earth and rock? –

In attitudes austere, serene,

Evincing myth, story, epoch."

Excerpted from Again
the Far Morning by N. Scott Momaday, University of New Mexico Press.
Reprinted in Ancient Meditations, New
Mexico magazine, August, 2011, p. 37.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

In the summer of 2000 I had the good luck and great
privilege to be guided around Horsethief Lake State Park, in Washington State,
by Dr. James Keyser, one of the great names in North American Rock Art studies.
There is considerable Yakima polychrome painted style rock art in this area and
it is also the site of numerous petroglyphs including the marvelous petroglyph
known as Tsagaglalal, “She who
watches”, which originally probably also included some paint.

Another Tsagaglalal, Horsethief Lake State Park,

Washington. Note chipped edges of rock.

Photo Peter Faris: July, 2000.

Along with considerable rock art, the vicinity of Tsagaglalal also contains some small
rock shelters which seem to have been used as vision quest sites. The rock
floors of these shelters show a considerable degree of butt-polish apparently
acquired by frequent sliding in and out of place accompanied by long periods of
sitting. The rock here is volcanic, apparently basalt, and naturally fractures
in angular blocks. The rock shelters are located in low cliff and are the
result of large blocks cracking loose and falling away leaving small, roughly
rectangular openings. Many of the nearly right angled edges of the rock around
these shelters have been chipped away in small flakes. Keyser suggested that
the rock might have been chipped away for medicinal purposes because of the
spiritual nature of the site (so near to Tsagaglal). Additionally, the supposed
vision quest shelters also usually contain petroglyphs as well.

Native American beliefs in animism attributed a spirit
presence to many of the physical features around them. According to Wikipedia
animism “is a philosophical,
religious or spiritual idea that souls or spirits exist not only in humans and
animals but also in plants, rocks, natural phenomena such as thunder and
lightning, geographic features such as mountains or rivers, or other entities
of the natural environment.” The presence of Tsagaglalal
would have added a strong spiritual attraction to the environment as well. I
can picture that a young Native American undergoing a successful vision quest
in this environment might well have wanted to take a chip of the rock with him,
to include its power in his medicine bundle.

Pebble wedged in a crack. Horsethief Lake State

Park, Washington. Photo: Peter Faris, July 2000.

Another
interesting phenomenon found in these rock shelters is the placement of small
pebbles of stone into cracks in the rock face at these shelters, perhaps as
some sort of offering. I think of this as the “Kilroy was here” motivation, the
human urge to make some sort of visible change, to leave some record of their
existence. Alternatively, the pebbles may have originally been jammed into the
crack to hold some sort of organic offering in place that has since been lost
to the elements.

Perhaps any study
of a rock art location should include a much more detailed study of surrounding
rock surfaces for such modifications as further clues toward the later
interpretation of the purpose and significance of the rock art.

Note: I am deeply grateful to my friend Jim
Keyser for taking the time and effort to guide me to these locations.

Pages

"We can be nearly certain that we who look upon the rock art today were not the intended audience. But they have meanings for us non-the-less. Whether that meaning is part of our archaeological studies, a part of national or regional heritage or simply an appreciation of their aesthetic beauty, we are their inheritors and it is up to us to preserve them with care and dignity." D. Russel Micnhimer, 2012.

CONTACT US AT: ARCHEOFARIS@YAHOO.COM, you can make comments, suggest subjects for future postings, or send a photo as an attachment to your e-mail for consideration as a future Pix Pick (submitting your photo is understood to include permission for use). NOTE: The previous e-mail address, rockartblogmail@yahoo.com, was apparently blocked by Yahoo for some unknown reason so I can no longer access it. If you have tried to communicate with me through that address I probably have not received your message.

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About Me

30+ year member of the Colorado Archaeological Society,
Founder and former President of the Colorado Rock Art Association,
Member of the Arapahoe County Cultural Commission, President of Institute for Archeoesthetics.
2013 recipient of the Ivol Hagar Award for outstanding service to the Colorado Archaeological Society, and a 2013 Colorado Rock Art Association Chapter Achievement Award. Member of Archaeology and Historic Preservation Committee and also Programs Committee of History Colorado.
Arapahoe County Cultural Council.